Phlexglobal has announced a significant investment by funds managed by Vitruvian Partners, which is now established as a majority shareholder.
Previous majority investor Bridgepoint Development Capital (BDC) will exit Phlexglobal after being a supportive partner since 2014. The new ownership will enable the company to expand the global footprint of its services and the PhlexEview4 technology platform.
Chief executive officer of Phlexglobal Rick Riegel commented: "The trial master file is at the centre of the clinical trial workflow and crucial to managing increasing regulatory scrutiny. We expect growth across all aspects of the business as pharmaceutical sponsors recognise the advantages of both quality and efficiency in their TMF processes, thereby drawing increasingly on specialist TMF technology and service providers.
"We have enjoyed significant growth under BDC’s ownership, extended our customer and operational base and relaunched PhlexEview, our eTMF platform. As we seek to continue to strengthen and extend our market-leading customer proposition, the investment from Vitruvian allows us to accelerate our plans and further enhance the depth and breadth of our technology and service offerings."
A partner at Vitruvian Philip Russmeyer added: "Vitruvian is delighted to invest in Phlexglobal at a time of continued rapid market growth for eTMF services and technology providers, and following the highly successful launch of the PhlexEview4 platform.
"Our investment will allow the company to build on this success and accelerate growth both organically and inorganically by further leveraging its unique full-service technology-enabled proposition.
"We are very pleased to partner with Phlexglobal’s outstanding management team and look forward to jointly driving the next phase of the company’s global development."
A partner of Bridgepoint Development Capital Alan Payne said: "As the outsourced pharmaceutical industry has grown on the back of increased research and development (R&D) spend and more complex regulation, so too has Phlexglobal expanded with new technology and services. By extending its reach to customers the company is now well placed to accelerate development further under new ownership."